Man drowns after being held underwater to ‘overcome his fear’

Three men have been arrested after a company executive drowned in Guangzhou during an exercise in which he was repeatedly held underwater to help ‘overcome his fear’.The man, surnamed Huang, had paid 30,000 yuan for the training course. The three organisers have been held by police for accidentally causing the death of the man. The men avoided being charged for murder because they were apparently too stupid to realise that holding someone underwater repeatedly could kill them.Shanghai Daily reports:

Huang, the boss of a local company, participated in one section of the class designed to “overcome his fear.”In this section, two tutors held Huang underwater in a swimming pool, only allowing him to take air every 30 seconds.The third tutor, a 37-year-old surnamed Liu who created the training session, counted the time at the side of the pool, directing the others.The tutors repeatedly pushed Huang into the water despite his desperate struggles to stay above the water, police said.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that the tutors reportedly lacked even basic first-aid skills, the whole exercise is completely pointless. While you can, by force of will, overcome many fears (see: Fear Factor), drowning is not one of them. You cannot overcome the instinctive fear of feeling like you are drowning, which is why waterboarding is such an effective torture method.[Image credit: @supercereal]